Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found In the Loony Bin
by Norah Vincent
Struggling with the psycho-emotional conflicts of being a woman living as a man
for her last book, Self-Made Man  (2006), Vincent checked herself into the
psychiatric ward of a hospital. While there, she found inspiration for her next
immersion-journalism experience. But this experience went way beyond observation
as Vincent actually wondered about the state of her mental health. For a woman
with a history of depression, what began as an investigation into psychiatric
practices and questionable diagnoses, within the broader context of modern
American culture, morphed into a personal exploration of mental stability. In
this sometimes harrowing and sometimes humorous account, Vincent recalls her
stay at three mental-health facilities: the ward of a big-city public hospital,
a rural private psychiatric hospital, and an alternative-treatment program.
Vincent chronicles not just the social and economic differences in illnesses and
treatments at the facilities but also the madness of bureaucracies that
overmedicate and dont listen enough to what patients have to say. A riveting and
enlightening look at mental-health treatment.
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